There’s nothing Glastonbury veterans love more than telling you how much easier the festival was back in the day. “In 1970 it was only a pound, and we just turned up at the farm!” they’ll say, or “we just used to buy our tickets from the local record store a week before!” I had always rolled my eyes and ignored their wistful (and usually grumpy) remarks and made peace with the anxiety-inducing madness that is securing a Glastonbury ticket today. But now I find myself joining their ranks.
I too wish for the old ways. This year, Glastonbury has announced that the way festival-goers secure tickets is changing. Instead of being kept in an online holding pen before being put through to the booking page, millions of hopefuls will now join a queue system.
Anyone who is on the ticket page when the sale begins at 6pm will be “randomly assigned a place in the queue”; anyone who joins later will have to live with a spot at the back of the queue and wait their turn. I know what you’re thinking: that seems fair. And you’re right, it is fair.
It puts everyone who is keen enough to arrive early (or at least on time) to get tickets on a level playing field with equal chance of getting to Worthy Farm next June. But I hate it. I have been trying – with various degrees of success – to get Glastonbury tickets for over a decade.
Some years – like the glorious time I was put straight through to the booking page in 2022 – it’s been surprisingly easy. But most of the ti.
